Deception on arms issue from Senate Democrats

January 23, 2013

Surely liberals in the state Senate do not think Ohioans are gullible enough to accept "trust us" assurances their rights are not being violated. Buckeye State residents know better.

Senate Democrats hope to propose legislation to prevent tragedies like the massacre last month at a Connecticut school, it was reported last week. The focus may be restrictions on firearms.

It is possible the plan will include a ban on ownership of so-called "assault weapons." Senate Democrat Leader Eric Kearney of Cincinnati told a reporter whether such a proposal is made will depend on conversations with various special interest groups, including gun rights advocates.

But Kearney said any debate over gun laws should not be viewed as a fight over the right to keep and bear arms. "I support the Second Amendment of the Constitution, as I do all the other amendments to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. So that's not really the issue, in my view," Kearney said last week. But it is the issue. Kearney and other Senate Democrats know that - or ought to.

Restrictions on gun ownership by law-abiding Ohioans eat away at the Second Amendment, which is a no-nonsense prohibition of government interference with the right to keep and bear arms.

Again, no one has specifically proposed banning certain types of firearms or the types of ammunition magazines that can be sold for them - in Ohio. But New York legislators have approved such provisions, and President Barack Obama is calling on Congress for a federal ban.

Many Ohioans may agree with that. But others, understanding why the Second Amendment exists in the first place, will not. And merely telling them, in effect, that a limit on that Constitutional guarantee is not what it appears to be will deceive no one.